At the Open Source Lab we host many of our sites as a Drupal multisite. This means that we have several instances of Drupal using the same theme, and then we can populate each site with different content as needed (for instance, cass.oregonstate.edu and osuosl.org would be different websites with different messages, but with Drupal they can look and act the same. Pretty neat!). Since not all of our sites are used by the OSL (i.e.

In the simplest of terms, OpenStack is a massive undertaking. The goal of OpenStack is to fit just about every use case imaginable. This goal brings with it a daunting list of configuration options and requires a larger understanding of networking and virtualization systems. Couple that with cryptic error messages, and this makes for a system that can easily crush a newbie's confidence and cause them to scrap the system altogether. Luckily, there are some projects out there trying to lower the entry bar and get more people introduced to OpenStack.

At the OSL we have shared workstations, most of which are named after colors. In the NOC, I usually work at emerald.workstation.osuosl.bak (Figure 1). I use tmux (Figure *) to multiplex so I can have multiple terminals open in a single ssh connection and connect to my session from anywhere. When splitting the terminal vertically, the prompt can get so long that it's hard to see the command that I'm entering (Figure 2). I'd like my prompt to automatically shorten itself in narrow windows.

Oregon State University Open Source Lab

Build The Future

The Open Source Lab is an organization working for the advancement of open source technologies.

The lab provides hosting for more than 160 projects, including those of worldwide leaders like the Apache Software Foundation, the Linux Foundation and Drupal. Together, the OSL’s hosted sites deliver nearly 430 terabytes of information every month to people around the world.